My brother played this game since he was young. I knew about this game and I played it for 3 years (each school day and some of my holidays, now I'm 19 years old), and I gotta admit, I would really love to see an improved version of this game.

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I rather One Must Fall 2097 than One Must Fall: Battlegrounds, because of the total customization of your robot.

Imagine all the first OMF but with brand new 3d graphics and special effects, new GUI, online option, same keyboard configuration (punch, kick).
Wouldn't be awesome...?:

Fight with another player-customized robot?

Expand the story of each character?

Maybe more HARs and pilots.

Make them talk!

Much more time required to upgrade robot parts and expand the maximum number of upgrades you could do.

I've thinked about all and more than this since I began (and finished) playing it.

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After 3 years, I've thinking about leaving a message like this, all the time asking myself:

You know there's plenty of people in youtube that played it. Make it live again! What about a kickstarter initiative? The game totally worth the money. No fighting game I played in my life got this gameplay quality as this one, this is epicness. ^^

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NOTE: I don't expect a positive response from you, because I'm sure you knew all this info I just wrote in this post and I know you're not going to do anything about it: worth the try anyway.

Oi oi oi, that was quite a post... I'll try to answer each part as you posted them.

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Being a fellow OMF2097 nut over OMFBG I'd definitively would love to see a remake of OMF2097 over OMFBG as well. I can see that we have some differences in opinions about what should be in such a remake, considering I'd probably be sending mail-bombs to anyone daring to make my beloved OMF2097 into 3D! :p But everyone have different opinions about such things, so I see no point in picking on that.

I do note that it is the Tournament Mode that has really drawn you in, which is no big surprise, as it is definitively the most popular aspect of the game, and the main reason it became such a cult classic. Though personally I would have liked to move away from the "more of everything" idea, and more toward "more actual choices", I've already ranted on about this in another thread, so I see no point in cluttering up your thread as well! ;)

The idea of expanding the story for each character is an interesting idea in base principle, but I'm uncertain how they could do that really... considering all the characters enters the tournament in order to solve their personal agendas, and whoever wins generally do get to solve everything. So what would be left ? Or perhaps making prologues ? There are clearly some good directions that this can be taken, but it requires a good bit of thought.

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Hehe, one of our longtime members (and a moderator) Malfrex suggested something similar with kickstarter, though I think he was talking about OMFBG. So you're right that it is information that we "know about from before" as you put it. I myself have looked into Brian Fargo's Wasteland 2, as well as Chris Avellone's Project Eternity, and thrown in quite a bit of money on them. And honestly, I don't think it is a bad idea in itself to have a OMF kickstarter, but I do think that the current obstacles are to heavy to overcome right now. (Source-code, Support from DE/Rob Elam, target audience and system platforms etc).

And I'm clearly biased, but I absolutely agree that OMF2097 is the greatest fighting game I've ever played. Granted I'm not really a big fighting game fan, but I just love this little game to death.

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Hmm, positive or negative... I'm not really certain how I would qualify my own response. I do think it is interesting and fun to discuss and ponder about things as a mental challenge, and at the same time I do know how little forthcoming DE/Rob Elam have been regarding pretty much anything since... ehr... forever? (Can't even recall any time he has willingly given away any kind of information or support without allot of nagging first...). So I guess I'm bouncing a bit into both! That probably fits my personality as well, as I tend to bounce back and forth between raving maniac and the voice of reason :p

And since our oldest moderator Robyrt no longer does so, I'll take the task upon myself and officially welcome you to the OMF-forums! It is a rather quiet place nowadays, but some of us die-hard fans haven't quite let go of this place yet. Also, thank you for an interesting read and greetings from Norway!

Edit: Forgot on thing, I think this post would fit better in either Game Talk or Off Topic. Technically since it is about OMF2097 it should probably be moved to Off Topic. (1) Because Tech Talk is supposed to be about hardware and system specs and stuff and (2) Because OMF2097 is technically considered Off Topic material as this forum was originally made for OMFBG and (3) There is little enough talk on the forum as it is, so there is not really any point to divide the activity any further! :roll:_________________- Jon Eirik * www.omf2097.com * www.omf2097.com/wiki * www.omf2097.com/chat -

Edit: Forgot on thing, I think this post would fit better in either Game Talk or Off Topic. Technically since it is about OMF2097 it should probably be moved to Off Topic. (1) Because Tech Talk is supposed to be about hardware and system specs and stuff and (2) Because OMF2097 is technically considered Off Topic material as this forum was originally made for OMFBG and (3) There is little enough talk on the forum as it is, so there is not really any point to divide the activity any further!

Although "The Game" says "All topics related to One Must Fall: Battlegrounds." I think we could let it slide in there. This is the only official message board I know of for either game, and since both have been out a while and the forums have died down I don't see why it couldn't go there. That being said it doesn't really matter since there are only a few places to look - I'd just get it out of tech talk._________________I wish I still had some jag rolls

The kickstarter idea is definitely not a bad one. It's pretty current so you have that advantage (I wouldn't bet money on it being a big deal in 5-10 years, but I might be horribly, horribly wrong). It has worked quite well for some developers.
I think that would be the first kickstarter project I'd support financially.

I do note that it is the Tournament Mode that has really drawn you in, which is no big surprise, as it is definitively the most popular aspect of the game, and the main reason it became such a cult classic... The idea of expanding the story for each character is an interesting idea in base principle, but I'm uncertain how they could do that really... considering all the characters enters the tournament in order to solve their personal agendas, and whoever wins generally do get to solve everything.

The tournament mode was my main draw for 2097 as well. As for the character's stories, I *think* I still have some of Rob's lore documentation lying around but that will never get released as it was still part of the NDA. It is what I had used to write the fanfic work that I did, which ended up unofficially being canon (or not?). I have no clue if you could still find google cached versions of Battlecast, but its in there. Unfortunately his lore only lead up to the point where BG was starting to take place and it didn't really define what anyone's goals/desires were for BG. The massive list of pilots ended up just being faces instead of people who were fleshed out - especially since we were only allowed to use ~100 characters for any pilot's bio. I was responsible for ~40% of the ones they used on my own... don't know if that was a good thing

Raptor wrote:

Hehe, one of our longtime members (and a moderator) Malfrex suggested something similar with kickstarter, though I think he was talking about OMFBG.

WAIT A MINUTE!!!! You're putting words in my mouth! I greatly preferred the play-style of 2097 over BG, but my hopes were for it to be a 2D or 2.5D fighter using 3D models. As interesting as the controlling of individual limbs was, I think it slowed down the pace of the game too much.

As for the kickstarter I had suggested it, inquired if anyone knew of Rob's where abouts to inquire if he'd even be interested, and found he had basically disappeared. Saul is back in Ontario now and has a growing family (I'm out in Vancouver now with a family of my own) but he hasn't spoken to Rob in many years. I did a little google-fu and found a way to get ahold of him as him and Judy own a Greenwood Development/Elam Builders, Inc, which was formerly run by his father, Larry, who passed away back in 2003. It's at this point I figured it was getting a little creepy and didn't want to go through trying to get ahold of him, but you have all the info you need, if you'd like to._________________I'm not crazy, I'm sanity-challenged.
ASUS P8Z77-V PRO
i7 3770k (will OC @4.5Ghz)
2x8GB G.SKILL DDR3-2600
MSI 7970 3GB
Crucial M4 128GB
~10.9TB RAID 5 (4x 4TB)

At this point I'd say trying to propose a spiritual successor to OMF 2097 is the most likely way to go... without Rob's involvement, for better or for worse, OMF is effectively a dead end.

That being said, there's fertile ground in terms of setting, gameplay mechanics, and extensibility that really have not been touched much at all in the context of a fighting game, and there's an opportunity for somebody with the ability to make it happen. Unfortunately I'm not much of anything for programming or art, otherwise I'd have already started kicking the tires on this._________________Official forum economist. Explodes when thrown.

WAIT A MINUTE!!!! You're putting words in my mouth! I greatly preferred the play-style of 2097 over BG, but my hopes were for it to be a 2D or 2.5D fighter using 3D models. As interesting as the controlling of individual limbs was, I think it slowed down the pace of the game too much.

Malfrex wrote:

The prodigal son has returned... sort of.

I was looking into the Wasteland 2 Kickstarter (put in my monies for the Double Fine Adventure one already) and got thinking about if Rob would consider going this direction for OMF, despite his apparent disappearance from the gaming scene after OMF:BG.

I could honestly see it working, and still have all the storyline work I had done back in the day with Killer Roach (hello, on a non-facebook format!) and Spockmeat (no clue where this guy is now...). I don't have nearly as much free time as I used to, but I'd be willing to put in whatever support I could for such a project. Moving, getting a "real" job, having a kid and getting married do that to a person :)

Pardon if I misunderstood, probably read that one to fast. Considering you where talking about your old storyline, which as far as I recall, was made for OMF:BG, I made a quick assumption. :p

And to be honest, I don't remember having read any of the BattleCast ... I think that was around the time I idle'd a bit again... Was reminded about that when looking at the usergroup's and found a battlecast group. Anyways, enough off topic for me!

Cyphax: Well a general response about KickStarter really. I think I said it before in the WasteLand2 or Project Eternity threads, but those developers are doing great because they already have established names in the gaming market. So KickStarter is probably going to end up really great for medium sized well known developers, that want to make a game that the publishers doesn't think sounds A+ material enough. The success or failure at such depends entirely upon the developers, they achievements, and the fans investing money.

In short, by law of Murphy, we're lucky if they last the year! ;) Naah they should be doing fine for some more years.

killer_roach: I agree. Without any kind of support from Rob Elam, which also means no source.code, thus essentially remake from scratch anyways. So yeah, Spiritual Successor is it, if anything.

I know this will sound like heresy coming from me though, but I always found the setting so very limiting. Every time I've tried to make a tournament etc, I've always ended up with it being just a bunch of random guys with random cheesy lines. And when toying with other things, like how would OMF turn out as an rpg etc, I end up just lacking any angles to take things off without losing all the stuff that makes OMF into OMF. But that is probably just me!_________________- Jon Eirik * www.omf2097.com * www.omf2097.com/wiki * www.omf2097.com/chat -

I'm thinking about the setting in a more broad sense... there's a lot you could do to expand it out rather than accept the narrow interpretation that the game currently sticks you into._________________Official forum economist. Explodes when thrown.

I was just razzing you Raptor; I could see how it'd be easy to interpret what I wrote as being "we need OMF:BG back... but with better graphics".

If you feel the urge to relive nostalgia, I uploaded all the Battlecast releases sans their missing graphics. I literally saved these out from my email just now, which had all the images linking back to the defunct omf.com

As for expanding out from the setting, I think if an OMF game were to be made, it'd have to be something along the lines of Planetary Annihilation. You obviously couldn't have a Pyro, Jaguar or delve further into the harrowing tales of Stephan (I had so much planned for him!) but the general premise can be forged into a greater mythos with added flexibility._________________I'm not crazy, I'm sanity-challenged.
ASUS P8Z77-V PRO
i7 3770k (will OC @4.5Ghz)
2x8GB G.SKILL DDR3-2600
MSI 7970 3GB
Crucial M4 128GB
~10.9TB RAID 5 (4x 4TB)

I was just razzing you Raptor; I could see how it'd be easy to interpret what I wrote as being "we need OMF:BG back... but with better graphics".

If you feel the urge to relive nostalgia, I uploaded all the Battlecast releases sans their missing graphics. I literally saved these out from my email just now, which had all the images linking back to the defunct omf.com

As for expanding out from the setting, I think if an OMF game were to be made, it'd have to be something along the lines of Planetary Annihilation. You obviously couldn't have a Pyro, Jaguar or delve further into the harrowing tales of Stephan (I had so much planned for him!) but the general premise can be forged into a greater mythos with added flexibility.

Need to look through these. I contributed to BattleCast once - got to see where!_________________-=Blaze Your Trail=-
-=Phreaky=-
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Need to look through these. I contributed to BattleCast once - got to see where!

Yeah, I contributed to quite a few of them with one of my first forays into business analysis (long before becoming a grossly underemployed economist)._________________Official forum economist. Explodes when thrown.

As for the kickstarter I had suggested it, inquired if anyone knew of Rob's where abouts to inquire if he'd even be interested, and found he had basically disappeared. Saul is back in Ontario now and has a growing family (I'm out in Vancouver now with a family of my own) but he hasn't spoken to Rob in many years. I did a little google-fu and found a way to get ahold of him as him and Judy own a Greenwood Development/Elam Builders, Inc, which was formerly run by his father, Larry, who passed away back in 2003. It's at this point I figured it was getting a little creepy and didn't want to go through trying to get ahold of him, but you have all the info you need, if you'd like to.

I think no one loses anything with just trying...

I hope that request to Rob doesn't finish like the coder of Blood, which doesn't want to release the code even if it's for creating ports or rendering/remake purpose...

I believe we all hope for the best and get this project kickstarted with the Elam brothers and start definitively the new era of comebacking.

But first than all and nothing, smile and hope for the best! Thanks guys for the interest you're putting to this request! _________________Jaguar, Shredder, Flail, Nova.